


Eurydice

by chelseagirl



Category: The Alienist (TV)
Genre: F/M, Repairing the Damage, True Love Conquers All
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:46:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28926753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chelseagirl/pseuds/chelseagirl
Summary: Laszlo Kriezler comes home one evening to find the impossible.
Relationships: Laszlo Kreizler/Mary Palmer
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Eurydice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evewithanapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/gifts).



It was her silence which drew him, first.

That she was lovely, with her dark eyes and hair, there was no doubt. And her strength. How much he admired her strength, the way things were so effortless for her that he, with his damaged arm, could not manage.

But in a life that consisted of endless words, spoken, written, read, heard . . . there was something about her stillness which he found unbearably beautiful.

To love and be beloved, and then to lose her to the madman – it had been too much for him.

He’d managed to go on with things, of course. Given John the ring that was meant for her, since he would not love again. And then, improbably, did. For a short time, anyway.

On returning from Vienna, he took up what was left to him. His work at the Institute, his few and valued friendships. But his home remained empty, without Mary.

So when, one December night, early darkness and chill in the air, he let himself in with his latchkey to find his dead beloved sitting in the front parlor, quietly reading, he found that he felt rather faint. He hung up his coat and hat, and sat down carefully in an armchair, afraid to take his eyes off of her. Afraid she would disappear.

But she merely looked at him, with that enigmatic smile of hers, and put down her book.

When he began to question her, how such a thing could be, she put a finger to her lips. But she then nodded, and he realized that she wanted him to speak. Just not to ask.

He thought that perhaps it would be in poor taste to discuss her killer, but he spoke to her of how the same band had reunited in the Libby Hatch case. There was plenty to say about the Institute, and his time in Vienna (carefully omitting any reference to Karen Stratton).

She listened intently, and the hours passed quickly, but at last, he could stay awake no longer. “I must go up to bed, Mary.” He caught his breath. “Are you coming?” They had, after all, been lovers at the very last.

But she shook her head, no, and took up her book again.

In the morning, she was gone, and he wondered if it had all been a dream.

The next evening, he came home as soon as his last consultation had ended, not even pausing to write down his notes. Although it was still early, the carriage drove him through the December darkness, the city made strange by lightly falling snow.

He practically bounded out of the carriage, pausing only to give Stevie some money and to suggest that he treat himself to a leisurely dinner and then retire directly to the carriage house. And when he arrived at the parlor, once again, she was sitting there. Tonight she was knitting, and as he watched, the woolen scarf slowly grew. _If she’s knitting, she’s corporeal. She cannot be a ghost._

“I’m afraid I’ve told you everything, Mary. Everything of importance.”

She gave him a look, as if to say she didn’t mind.

“Tonight I came home as soon as I could, hoping you would be here. But last night, before I returned home to find you, I dined with old friends. Friends that you know.” With nothing more to say about himself, he told her funny stories about John Moore’s experiences at the Times, and also of John’s rather unfortunate marriage. With some trepidation, he spoke of Sara Howard’s new detective agency, and was surprised to see Mary smile, and nod in an expression of interest. When those stories ran out, he told her of Cyrus’ bar on the West Side waterfront.

Again, he spoke and she listened, until sleep could no longer be denied. “May I kiss you goodnight, Mary?” he asked, hoping for at least that.

But again, she shook her head no, and he reluctantly retired.

Once more, the front parlor was empty in the morning, and Mary nowhere to be found. Her knitting remained, however, set neatly on the chair where she’d been sitting the night before. He picked it up, carefully, running his hand over the soft wool of the scarf that was growing from the needles.

All the next day, he had trouble concentrating on anything his patients had to say. He felt certain, somehow, that if Mary were there that night, it would mean something. “Third time’s the charm,” he’d often heard, but arch-rationalist that he was, had scoffed at. Certainly, she wouldn’t have left her knitting if she wasn’t coming back, would she?

She must have been sitting there some time, he realized, as he hung his coat up in the hallway. The scarf she was knitting was now considerably longer than it had been that morning.

Again, he set in the armchair facing her. But over the past two nights, he had told her about his work, his friends. What was left? Mary knew something of his past; because of their similar traumas, he’d been able to confide in her what no one else knew. He reached inside himself to find if there was anything left to give, and found there was.

Letting down the last of his barriers, he spoke to her simply of his love for her. His words were halting, for Laszlo Kriezler was far less able to put into words what came from the heart, instead of from the mind. And rather than speaking far into the night, he ran out of words.

It was then that she put down the knitting, and came to him. She drew him up from his armchair, and he took her into his arms, and they kissed. And he felt the warmth of her skin, and the beating of her heart, and knew without doubt, that somehow Mary Palmer had truly come back to him. _Third time’s the charm._

There was no reason to wait, and so a few weeks later, a few friends were invited to Laszlo’s home for a small dinner to meet his new bride. “I thought she was . . . that is, didn’t she?” Sara whispered to John.

“It must be . . . they say everyone has a double,” John whispered back. Violet glared at them, and fed a tidbit from the table to her lapdog.

The new Mrs. Kriezler smiled graciously, but never spoke a word all evening.

Laszlo’s friends continued to wonder, but as they saw how happy he was, how contented the pair of them, they began simply to accept it. A friend of Karen Stratton’s, who studied fairytales and folklore, said such things were occasionally known to have happened in earlier times, times before science. That love was sometimes stronger than death.

Kriezler himself, rationalist that he was in every other aspect of life, never once doubted that his Mary had come back to him, not in all the long years that they had together.

**Author's Note:**

> So: spookiness and everybody lives fixits. Because Mary and Laszlo deserved their happily ever after. I hope you enjoy!


End file.
